


Drabble

by AlexOC



Category: Gravity Falls, Multi-Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Other, and unfinished/short works, book keeping, feedback post
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2018-12-10 12:33:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11691729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexOC/pseuds/AlexOC
Summary: Using this post to collect some of my incomplete project, and take feedback (general and to specific fics) in hopes of completing and improving them.





	1. Index

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Index of stories within Drabble

Chapter and their stories:

2\. Modeling  
\- A boy models for an art class of one to avoid a failing grade  
3\. Pine-ing  
\- A brother and sister disturb a spirit of the woods  
4\. Dip Drop  
\- Dipper accidentally gets shrunk


	2. Modeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex agrees to pose in a life drawing class, not knowing his crush is the only one who will be attending...

Alex shivered bare feet on the cold cement floor.

"We'll start any second now." Said the old shrew that passed for an art teacher at the seniors center.

He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself; it wasn't her fault he hadn't gotten enough volunteer hours, or that that this was this was the only thing in the entire town that needed someone.

He adjusted the towel that was providing him with his all too temporary dignity. It was her fault he was going to be naked.

Life Drawing! I mean really!

When he signed up he was ready to wear a stupid costume, or stand in a weird pose for a few hours. But naked, was that even legal?

"Are you ready dear?"

Mrs. Redeil stuck her head into room and squinted at him through the ancient baseball sized chunks of glass she called glasses. He wanted to scream her he wasn't and to get out.

"Oh good, let's get you out there."

He deflated. Why did she have to seem so nice, excited even? He followed her; it was only a few feet from where he'd been standing to the main room they were using for the class, but it his heart was pounding in his chest and the walk seemed to take ages.

"Now I don't want to disappoint you, but our turn out wasn't quite what I'd expect. There's a Matlock special on tonight you see." As though that explained what that was or why so many old people were ditching her class to see it. "But don't worry Mr Phillips' grandson is here, so we won't have to cancel."

He froze, just inches from walking through the door. 

A grandson? Last name Phillips?

He peeked one eye into the room.

The room was scattered with empty chairs except for one, which help a puff of curly brown hair hiding behind an easel and canvas.

"oh no" Alex mouthed to shocked to breath.

Tom.

Tom "I've had a crush on him since he shared his lunch with me in elementary school and I found out we both like power rangers" Phillips, my grandmother being in the class would be less humiliating.

Mrs. Redeil game him a gentle tug on the arm that was holding up his towel, and he had little choice but to move in that direction. "Don't be shy Alex, I'm sure you don't have anything he doesn't."

"Alex? I didn't know you were taking this-" Tom stuck his head out from behind his canvas and his words trailed off.

"Modeling job. Yes Thomas here, kindly volunteered himself to us tonight." Mrs. Redeil completed for him.

Tom just stared at Alex, a look of mild panic somewhere in his eyes. "And he's modeling like that, n-"

"Correct, oh natural." She smiled, "Don't dear, no one is quite ready the first time. If you get nervous just imagine your model is naked." She laughed at her own joke.

The two boys just stared at her like she was a mad woman.

She let out a contented sigh and paused to take a breath. "Let's get on with this, Alex why don't you get up on the modeling platform."

The 'modeling platform' wasn't much more than a rough wood stand maybe two feet tall. It was easy enough to get up, he even managed to do it without flashing anyone; but standing up there had the uncomfortable effect of making feel even more like the center of attention than he already did.

She turned to the mostly empty room, "Hello class." Tom filled the likely scripted silence with a meek "hi" before she continued. 

"Today we will be painting our life model, Alex. Why don't we say hello class."

From deep behind his canvas Tom let out a mumbled "hi Alex".

"Now as always you are to give our model the utmost respect or I will ask you to leave. We are very fortunate that they are donating their time."

Like I had a choice.

"Now Alex, did you have a pose in mind?"

"Ah, not really Mrs. Maybe I could sit on the edge?" That might be slightly less miserable than the absolutely possible.

"No, no, that won't do. A stool maybe?" She hurried over to the corner and grabbed a tall stool made of metal." She grunted with effort pushing it up towards him. "Hurry up please."

It was heavy build heavy for a workshop and he was clumsy with nerves. His towel slipped when he took both hands off it to help with the stool.

And like that he was naked. It was less ceremony than he'd expected; but considering the other option might have been falling face first off the platform, he'd take the band-aid method.

Mrs. Redeil let out a surprised "Oh" and he distinctly heard a strange high-pitch noise from the mess of brown hair retreating back behind Tom's canvas. "Well it had to come off anyways," she bent down on creaking knees to grab his towel. "Let's get you posted."

The next few minutes left Alex feeling like someone's new toy. He'd hoped he could sit legs together or even crossed on the stool, but she wasn't having any of that. She ran him through a number of poses before settling on one where his right leg dangled off the edge of the stool and his left was raised resting on the crossbar half way up the stool. Of course his hands weren't anywhere near to covering him, one on his raised knee and the other relaxed at his side. He gazed, chin posed proud, into the distance with Tom seated just below and to the right of his line of site.

But all he cared about it that Mrs. Redeil had done everything in her power to make as "natural" pose as possible for Tom to work with, which apparently meant putting my junk as directly in view as possible.


	3. Pine-ing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An ancient pine tree's day is disturbed by a pair of twins looking for a place to build a fort.

North of an insane town and deep in the woods of Oregon, the warm summer sun beat down a great hill. The hill offered a beautiful view of the land in every direction, and was clear but for a single great pine tree that dominated its crown.

The pine tree had stood through the passing of nearly 300,000 such suns. Its roots sunk deep into the earth, woven through rabbit warrens, and around glacial boulders. It's needles slowly shed over the passing ages had left a soft bed, one that had served as a resting place for many a tired creature.

The pine tree sad and breathed.

The pine tree swayed with the winds and twisted to best catch the sun.

The pine tree listened as two more creatures walked up it's hill.

Despite the loads they carried, the creatures' footsteps were springy on the soft bed of needles and they were at the pine tree's base in little time. They breathed heavily, voices high and soft, as they deposited the burdens they had brought so far; piles of rope, metal, and lumber.

The pine tree's branches creaked.

The creatures kicked off the slabs of indigestible matter they had bound to themselves and set bare feet onto the hill. They put hands on it's bark, sunk their toes into it's discarded needles; and the pine tree eased as it's connection to them strengthen.

The smaller of the two creatures jumped, his hand brushing the underside of the lowest branch. The pine tree liked the attention and let the branch lower enough for the creature to take hold on his second attempt. With a firm grip on the lowest branch he kicked, and swung, and scrambled; heaving first one leg, than an arm and then his whole body up into the branches of the tree. He laughed in excitement, small scratched from the coarse bark on his bare arms and legs, sticky sap on his hands and clinging to his shorts. 

The creature paused for a time; to catch it’s breath, to enjoy the view, or simply to converse with the other one. The pine tree did not know, but soon their fury of motion continued. Piece by piece the materials they had brought with them were passed up into the tree, two even branches serving as a small shelf part way up the tree, and once everything was stowed away the second creature was helped up into the tree.

The creatures, the boy and the girl, were small examples of their kind; not fully grown, their combined weight could barely bend the one branch they were sitting on, and they loved to argue.

“Children”

The thought stirred somewhere deep in the sleepy consciousness of the pine tree, like the saplings and fawns that endlessly fought and played in the woods around the tree’s hill. 

The pine tree hadn’t played in a long time.

It’s mind long rooted in place pressed forward again.


	4. Dip Drop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel accidentally shrinks Dipper and does her best to make it up to him, meanwhile Dipper finds a new perspective on his situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A fic I started but ran out of steam on; cut's out before things get steamy, but a few fun moments in there. May get picked up again one day...

Scowling, Dipper started out at a sea of grass that seemed to stretch forever.

"Oh come on, you don't have to sulk."

Dipper looked up from where he stood on the edge of the Mystery Shack’s porch. Despite the fact that she was sitting on the edge of the same porch Mabel towered over him.

"You shrunk me to three inches tall and then broke the crystal that could fix it!" He shouted back, the only way he could be heard.

Mabel rubbed awkwardly at the back of her neck, a gesture the twins shared. "It was a prank. If you hadn't screamed so loud, I wouldn't have dropped it."

Dipper sighed, "Just help me look for a new crystal, ok?"

Mabel squinted up at the setting sun, and shifted awkwardly. "Look Dipper I know you're not happy with this, but it's getting late and didn't you say the place you found that crystal was like a 6 hour hike?"

"It's not that late and it might be faster this time..."

"In the dark?" Mabel looked down at him, "You know that's a bad idea. Let's go inside; before I messed this up I really was planning on having fun with you."

He really wasn't in the mood.

"I have tiny spoons and a giant bowl of chocolate ice cream?" Her voice bubbly.

"OK." He puffed out, "But we go first thing in the morning!"

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh My God!" Three times his body weight in ice cream later, Dipper was practically cheering, "This might be the greatest discovery in human history, no all of history!"

He shoveled another spoonful of ice cream into his chocolate smeared mouth.

"You're really enjoying that." Mabel said, as she tried not to laugh too hard at the sight of her 'little' brother stretch himself over the lip of a bowl many times his size and stuff himself with an impossible amount of ice cream.

"Enjoying?" He chirped back at her. "I love it! It doesn't even make sense, but I love it. I'm not even full; it's like I can still eat as much as I could if I was my normal size, but I get to taste every single tiny piece of it."

He stretched himself far over the bowl and took another spoon full. "So good."  
Mabel glanced down at her own empty bowl and across at Dipper's half melted one. She picked up her spoon and stole a scoop the size of Dipper's head out of his only half empty bowl.

"Hey!" He shouted, trying to fend off Mabel with the miniature spoon she had given him.

"If you didn't want me to steal some you should have eaten faster. I mean leaving a lady to just watch you eat, how could you Dipper?" Somehow her smile made the offense sound unconvincing.

He gave her a dirty look and went back to his ice cream. Teetering on the edge of the bowl, stretched out to reach a chunk of still frozen ice cream he sounded annoyed. "You already got me stuck like this, you didn't have to steal my desert too!"

Mabel would probably not have done it if she'd stopped to think, but shrinking him had been an accident and she was really trying to make it up to him.

She bumped the table with her knee.

With a yell that was almost immediately cut off and a wet splat, Dipper fell face first into the mostly melted soup.

The small figure that stood back up was soaked and covered head to toe in melted ice cream, it let out a muffled groan as it wiped at it's face.

Mabel covered her mouth with her hands, simultaneously feeling incredibly guilty and trying not to laugh.

"Ar- are you ok?" She asked, her eye were watery and and she almost choked on the words.

"I'm cool." Dipper said with the best straight face he could manage.

They both burst out laughing.  
Much laughter, several falls as Dipper tried to climb out of the slippery bowl, and more renewed laughter later. Dipper lay floating in now warm chocolate soup.

"Are you giving up? Can I help now?" Mabel asked, though she wasn't quite bored of watching Dipper play in the unholy love child of a kiddy pool and and ice cream truck.

"Yes. Fine." He sighed, as her giant hand came towards him. "Just don't-"

Mabel's not quite gently slid under him, pinched the back of his shirt between two fingers, and lifted him up into the air. He dangled hanging a foot above the table.

"Pick me up like a kitten." He finished.

"But you're so cute! Though a bit sticky."

"Mabel." He crossed his arms, trying to be firm.

"Fine, but we do need to get you clean." She smiled mischievously. "And you know what helps grumpy messy boys? Cat Bath!"

"What?" He suddenly remembered Mabel's favourite way to gross him out when they were seven. "No, no, no no!"

She pulled him close, and he threw up his arms trying to ward off a tongue almost as large as he was. She gave him a long wet lick; covering most of his chest, pressing her spit into his nose and mouth as the strength of his tongue was enough to lift him an inch or two.

"Blegh!" He spat and wiped at his face, "SO GROSS!" But there was a small, tiny, little bit of a laugh in there. It was really hard to stay mad at Mabel sometimes.

"Well now I need a bath."

"Dipper you tasted like chocolate." She cringed and pulled something out of her mouth. "And hair. If I'd left you like that I you'd have been carried off my ants in the middle of the night."

"That's..." He peered down at Stan's less than sparkling kitchen floor, "A very good point."

Mabel set him down on a paper towel and headed towards the kitchen cabinet that held the dishes. She opened it and reached for a bowl.

"Hold up, I am not taking a bath in our kitchen ware." Trying to cut her off.

"Well you kind of already did, if you count the ice cream."

"Do you really want to risk eating out of something my naked butt has been in? Plus," He smiled through the grime on his face. "I have a better idea."

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dipper watched as Mabel squirted a glob of bubble bath into the sink and turned on the water. She tested it a few times for temperature before letting a small stream of water fill pool in the bottom of the sink, they didn't need to lose him in the bubbles.

She left it to keep filling and tied a piece of a floss around the faucet, leaving the length hanging down into the sink.

"A heated pool, I'm most jealous Dip."

"Well next time you can be the one who gets shrunk; I even promise not put you back after." His voice was free of annoyance this time, he was starting to see the advantages of his current state. At least, as long as it was temporary.

"I might take you up on that Mr. I hope you're ready to be the one doing all the work."

He stepped behind a now giant bottle of shampoo to change, while Mabel dumped a small pile of cotton balls on the counter for later use.

"I am so looking forward to this!" He shouted. "You won't believe how sticky half dried chocolate is."

He tried to pull his shirt up and it wouldn't budge. Uh oh. He pulled harder using the best leverage he could given the angle, the tar like goop that had soaked him head to toe stuck fast.

He sat down and tugged at his shoes, but it was like the laces had been glued together. A minute of grunting later he flopped onto his back.

Mabel stuck her head around the side of the shampoo bottle, covering her eyes with one hand.

"I'm decent." He sighed audibly annoyed.

She pulled her hand back and stared down at him. "You forget how clothes work? Or because we're in a different room, changing with me around is suddenly impossible?"

He blushed, though you couldn't tell in his current state. They didn't really talk about that second thing much; boy/girl twins, only one extra bedroom, no one had really asked them if it was ok. Not that he minded at all, they just usually pretend that neither of them had peripheral vision for 5 minutes a day.

"Noooo, I'm just kind of..." This could only happen to him. "Glued into my clothes."

Mabel let out a very short snort of laughter, but tried to compose herself. "Sorry, I know this is very serious. How can I help?"

It wasn't exactly a complicated situation, he just didn't have the strength. "Well..." But he also really didn't want to ask for help.

"I need you to, um... help me out of my..."

Oh god.

"Pants?" Mabel suggest, trying not to giggle.

"Predicament."

"Not a problem bro bro, it'll be just like playing with an anatomically correct Ken doll." She went to grab a set of nail scissors from the medicine cabinet.

"Mabel."

"Though I promise not to make you kiss other Ken dolls when Barbie is at work."

"Mabel!" He slapped his hand on the countertop. "No doll jokes!"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm just trying to lightning the mood, or do you want to talk about how I'm about to strip you naked?"

"uhhh...."

She held the scissors towards him. "Now stick your out your feet so I can cut the laces off."

He tried not to flinch as Mabel snipped a few times at his laces, the blades seemed massive from his perspective and he hoped his shoes would be relatively intact once she was done. 

She held his leg between two fingers, her grip strong despite her obvious attempts to be careful, and pulled on his shoe. It stuck for a second before popping off, pulling his sock with it. 

He wiggled his toes. "Much better." And shifted to let her repeat the process on his other foot.

"Shirt next?" Mabel asked. "I think I can grab it if you pull an edge out for me, but I might have to get the tweezers."

He obliged, tugging on the bottom edge of his t-shirt. It was surprisingly hard, but he was able to give her something to grab. She pulled the front of his shirt up; the sticky mess that had glued itself to him did not want to give and he felt as each millimeter of his fought not to let go. It clung to his skin before finally breaking apart, almost painful in some spots, as Mabel peeled off his shirt.

His arms were pinned up over his head as the shirt was pulled higher, and for a moment with his face covered and the full force of the pull on his chest it was hard to breath. But eventually, a little sore and a bit of hair pulled, he was out of the shirt. 

Mabel dumped the inside out piece of chocolate soiled fabric in a pile with his shoes...

TBC?


	5. Warm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Incomplete Damijon fic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got bored and never even bothered to edit this thing, so have fun.

Deep in the woods they trudged through knee high snow, their teeth chattering and their feet numb.

"We need to get out of the storm!" Jon shouted over the roar of the wind.

Damian pulled his ungloved hands out from his armpits, where they had been tucked to keep them from freezing, and shielding his eyes from the blasting snow looked around for the other boy. Jon had was a good 20ft ahead of him at the base of a rocky cliff.

"That's not right..." He thought sluggishly. "I was guiding us, wasn't I?"

"You're r-right, we-e need sh-sh-elter." He tried to say between clattering teeth.

"When did I get so cold..." He should probably be more worried.

The snow grew deeper as he dragged himself towards the base of the cliff, piled almost as high as him in some places. The wind was less here, but it wasn't shelter.

He shoved past Jon and up to the base of the cliff. "Get back!" 

Reaching into one of his few still useful pouches, Damian pulled out a bat-grenade. His last bat-grenade, the only thing they had between more advanced than a knife.

It wasn't worth dying for.

He plunged his hand into the deepest fissure in the rock he could find, his skin numb to the cuts and scrapes. His thumb pressed down on the trigger, he felt bits of skin tear away as he yanked his hand free of the frozen steel ball and out of the fissure.

"Down!"

A crashing explosion briefly drowned out the howl of the wind and snow, as rock was torn free and chucks were sent flying out of the cliff face.

Ears running they struggled back to their feet, not bothering to dust the extra snow they'd dived into off their already soaked forms. A small cave had been blasted out of the rock, rubble and great mountains of snow leaving the mouth blessedly narrow.

Damian's feet wavered beneath him as Jon grabbed him by the wrist and pulled them both forward into the cave.

It was supposed to be a training experience, Damian teaching Jon how to survive in the wilderness. The boy was strong as an ox, if intermittently, but he could get hungry and sick like the rest of them.  
So Damian got to spend a month in the woods teaching him to to eat random mushrooms and how to catch fish.

The only probably was that it had been almost two months since they got dropped off.

 

**Now.**

He was cold.

"Damian!"

Why wasn't he shivering?

"Damian!"

He need to rest.

A slap took him across the face. Hard enough to rattle teeth, it Damian's heart beating with adrenaline and his numb fingers searching for a weapon.

"You need to stay awake!" The voice sounded scared.

"Where are we?" He squinted trying to make out anything in the darkness. 

"The cave! The one you made five minutes ago!"

All this shouting was making his head hurt. 

"Ok Jon, you can do this! Damian taught you what to do for a full month."

A figure Damian could only barely make out, paced in the narrow confines of the stone. It kept looking back at him.

"God, I go to pile snow over the door for five minutes and your barely awake!"

"Oh come on boy scout, do I have to do everything?" He tried to stand up, but his feet couldn't hold him and he fell before he made it halfway.

"What are you doing!" Jon said catching him with one arm. He looked shocked when he did. "Oh god, you're freezing!"

Damian tried to shrug off Jon's grip. "It's not that bad, just... just, um.." He shook his head. "Remember the lake?"

 

**Two Weeks Earlier.**

"y-y-y-you-r-e e-evil-l!" Jon forced out between clattering teeth.

His tormenter laughed at that. "I thought Kryptonians we're tough, don't tell me you're ready to give up after only 40 minutes?"

"S-s-ut up!"

Damian lounged in the sun on the edge of a rock a few feet about Jon, bouncing a rock in one had. He'd thrown the last one at Jon when he tried to swim to shore and promised the next one wouldn't be a warning.

He glared up at him, but tried to focus on staying warm and not drowning.

Damian's watch beeped.

"Ok boy scout, you've been in 3 degree water for 45 minutes. So tell me this, what does the 'S' on your dad's costume stand for?"

What the hell was wrong with this guy!

"I don't know, something stupid! Can I get out now?"

Damian snorted. "Combative and forgetful, congratulations your in the first stages of mild hypothermia. If you don't get out of that water soon you might die." He dropped the rock and gestured at the 5ft of rock wall between them. "Start climbing."

It was the most miserable 5ft of his life. He'd been dressed in only thin pajamas when Damian had started that day's "lesson" early by shoving him into the lake. The wind felt like it was cutting right through him and it felt like he was wearing oven mitts, he nearly knocked himself back into the lake with clumsy uses of his super strength. But he soaking wet, and muscles shaking he made it to the top.

He wanted to just curl up into a ball right there, he'd never even needed a winter jacket before for anything but show.

"Get Up Jon!"

He tried to pull himself tighter. "no... I n-ne-ed a br-reak."

"You're core temperature is low, your clothes are soaking wet, and you're exposed to the wind. You. Aren't. Safe. Yet." 

He felt sick. People died like this.

Damian leaned down and shook him where he lay on the ground. "Come on Jon, there a nice fire going and a warm blanket to. But you need to get up and you need to get out of that wet clothing."

Too tired to argue he pulled at the hem of his shirt with trembling white fingers. He'd have blushed if his body would let him waste the heat on it.

You'd after two weeks in the woods together it wouldn't be embarrassing, but when you got down to it they were both kind of shy.

Jon was an only child who hadn't even needed to change for gym until he moved to the big city. It didn't help that they were both at an age where their own bodies felt weird to them, or that he was only half-human and had no idea how weird his puberty ("development" or "body" instead?) was going to be.

The closest he'd come to being seen naked was the time it was raining and they couldn't take turns changing in the shelter; it had been done eyes closed and facing the other way.

Lights off just to be safe.

So with numb fingers and shaking knees he stumbled his way towards the fire, discarding his pajama top in the dirt on the way.

He crashed down onto the rock closest to the fire, Damian grabbing his shoulder to stop him from falling right back off.

It felt hotter than the fire on his frozen skin, the bare hand off the other boy holding him was like hot chocolate after a day outside.

Damian pulled his hand away and he walked around in front of Jon, he crouched and stared Jon in the eyes.

"You aren't done, get out of those wet clothes!"

Jon tried, he really did. But shivering wracked his whole body and the knot in his pajama pants had gotten tight in the water.

A few seconds of failing and he felt like he was going to cry.

"Oh, fuck it!"

Damian jumped into motion shoving a blanket into Jon's hands and pulling a knife.

"wa-" He tried to say, but just had to watch embarrassed as Damian cut through the cord that held up is pajamas and began peeling them off him.

Moaning he sat there as Damian wrapped him in a blanket and practically holding him up, made Jon stand as close as he could to the fire.

It was an hour before he felt like himself. An hour of being held by his best friend. An hour of Damian awkwardly looking away. An hour of Damian stumbling out everything you're supposed to do when someone gets cold...

 

**Now.**

With an armload of wood Jon squeezed through narrow entrance to the hole he'd left Damian. He knew he was supposed to scavenge deadwood that had been given time to dry, but he'd been almost blind out in the snowstorm and has been lucky to find the cave again.

If Damian was a camping purest, he'd just have to live with Jon tearing the limbs from a tree and laser them on fire. Then again, he wasn't the one who put grenades in his survival kit.

"Just hold on a little longer." Jon said to the nearly still form slumped in the back of the cave. "Step one a fire right?"

It mumbled back something unintelligible.

He broke the limbs down into a few smaller pieces and setting most of the wood aside for later, he built up a small mound of it.

Careful to shield Damian with his body in case anything... well exploded, Jon readied his laser vision.

If you were totally honest, he was terrible with his laser vision. Like a public menace levels of terrible, but Damian was barely conscious, they were both soaking wet, it was below zero, and the sun was going down.

He literally could not make his worse.

Trying not to incinerate it he blasted the rock just above and behind the pile of wood. It dug keeping into the wall sending splinters of red hot stone bouncing off him and a brief wave if heat washing through the small space. The wood started to smoke then it burst into flames and he closed his eyes, ending the torrent of energy.

He breathed out, finding calm before opening his eyes again and inspecting the damage.

Nearly a third of the wood he'd setup for their fire had been caught in the backsplash of the blast and burned to ash, but the rest was doing it best to heat the small space. He could feel that initial wave of heat getting eaten by the cold stone around them, but at least they wouldn't be getting any cold as long as the wood lasted.

The deep crack in the stone that ran most of the way up to the ceiling was a less cheerful sight, how close had he come to burying them alive...

Jon shook his head, it hadn't caved in and they still weren't safe from the cold.  
He turned back to Damian, "You need to take-" and froze.

Damian sat there again the wall, eyes closed and head slumped forward.

 

**One Week Earlier.**

"We should say here, they told us to stay here!" Jon shouted, frustrated at having the same argument the third night in a row.

"Either this is a test and we're supposed to walk out or something bad is happening and we need to walk out!" Damian yelled over him.

He crossed his arms. "You're a paranoid nut, my dad wouldn't make this some dumb test and if they needed our help they'd have sent someone. They were probably called off world, or are stuck in a time vortex, or Earth's being invaded by one of the million alien races that don't have anything better to do. They're Batman and Superman, a few days late does not mean it's the end of the world."

"Gaghh!" Damian shoved Jon. "You'd rather hide than help!"

"You'd rather risk everyone's plans than stay on the sidelines!" He shoved back, nearly pushing Damian to the ground. "You don't have you powers anymore Damian, stop trying to get yourself killed!"

Damian inhaled a ragged breath, a snarl forming in the corner of his mouth. "I- No! I'm leaving tomorrow morning, be ready and come with me or stay here and wait for your daddy."

 

**Now.**

"Damian! Damian!" Jon shock the unconscious boy. "You need to wake up!"

He pulled him closer to the fire, it's light bathing the dead weight of his friends body.

Damian's breathing was shallow, and his skin was almost white punctuated with a hint of blue. Blisters had formed on his hands and cheeks, his skin ice cold.

"damian..." Jon said weakly.

"No!" He whipped at his eyes with his sleeve and fingers shaking from the cold, began to to unbutton Damian's shirt.

It was clumsy work and he tore off one or two of the buttons as he soon he lifted whip cord form of his best friend and peeled the nearly frozen shirt off him, wincing at the red skin underneath. He moved down; unlacing Damian's boots, tossing them and the socks into a growing piled.

He reached for the waistband of Damian's jeans and froze an inch short. Even in the cold he could still blush at that.

"Are you awake yet?" He tried fruitlessly. "Ok then, don't say I didn't try."

With a quick pop he'd undone the button on the waist and was pulling down pants and underwear, leaving the other boy completely naked on the rough stone floor. 

Something basic in him stirred as he let his eyes linger for a selfish moment at the few small inches of soft flesh. Hating himself getting distracted, and worse for enjoying it he dumped the last of Damian's clothes on a warm spot by the fire and waited for something to happen.

A few minutes without Damian even starting to shiver told him it wasn't working.

 

**Six Weeks Earlier**

"A month. In the woods. With the Boy Scout?" Damian asked, both confused and insulted. "There has to be a better use of my talents. The kid's more dangerous than any wild animals and can make a fire just by staring at a tree long enough."

He gave Jon a sideways glance and raised his voice just a little. "Unless it says something to make him shy, then maybe he'd freeze to death."

Bruce scowled at the joke. "Damian, I'm asking you to do this. Yes Jon is strong, but survival skills are on of your strengths not his. If you're going to keep running around as a team I expect you to act like one and help each other grow." 

"And how exactly is he going to help me Father, or do you expect his experience with heat vision to be useful?"

Bruce smiled and looked across the camping store where Jon was engaged in a tent pole sword fight with a boy he'd just met. "Maybe it won't, but I think he'll surprise you."


End file.
